Students'test Scores Released

Nn, Hampton Scores Below State Average

Students in Hampton and Newport News lagged behind the state average on the state's standardized tests last school year, while York County's scores were well above the state average.

The results of the Virginia State Assessment Program were released Thursday by Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools at a press conference. State officials had planned to release the results Thursday but postponed their press conference until today.

For the first time, the state released comparisons of test scores according to race and gender. The scores of black students trailed whites' by a large margin.

State officials said a more in-depth analysis of the disparity in scores showed that they matched socioeconomic status more closely than ethnicity, however.

Though first-graders statewide scored higher than in the previous year, there were no marked increases or decreases at other grade levels. Overall, Virginia students scored higher than the national average on all areas of all of the tests.

The state has a higher proportion of students scoring above the 75th percentile than the national average and fewer students below the 25th percentile than other states.

For fourth- and eighth-graders, the results were from the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, which covers vocabulary, reading comprehension, language, work study skills, mathematics, social studies and science.

For first-graders, there was a Cognitive Abilities Test, which covers verbal, quantitative and non-verbal skills.

Eleventh-graders took the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency, which cover reading, math, written expression, sources of information, social studies and science.

All scores are in terms of percentile ranking; for example, the 50th percentile means that half of the students tested nationwide scored better and half scored worse.

According to the results, Hampton's eighth-grade scores were higher than the previous year's on vocabulary, reference materials, visual materials, social studies, science and language. One of the largest increases came in science, which went from the 52nd percentile to the 58th percentile.

Hampton's eighth-graders scored at the 50th percentile or above in all areas except mathematics, where they averaged in the 46th percentile. The reading score stayed the same at the 52nd percentile.

Newport News' eighth-graders scored higher than their predecessors on all sections but vocabulary, where the score dropped by one point, from the 42nd percentile to the 41st. They improved from the 46th percentile to the 50th in reading and from the 46th percentile to the 48th in math. The largest increase was in science, from the 52nd percentile to the 60th.

The scores of York County's eighth-graders decreased slightly on five sections of the test, increasing only in sections on mathematics, reference materials and visual materials. All scores were in the 57th percentile or higher.

The average score of Hampton first-graders increased on all three sections of the Cognitive Abilities Test. The verbal went from 51st to 54th percentile, the quantitative score from 42nd to 43rd and non-verbal portions from 69th to 71st percentile.

Newport News first-grade students' average increased slightly on the verbal portion - from the 53rd percentile to the 54th - but dipped slightly on the quantitative, from 46th to 44th, as well as the non-verbal, from 69th to 68th. York County's first-grade average increased on all three portions of the test: verbal, from 60th to 62nd; non-verbal from 73rd to 74th; and quantitative from 56th to 57th.

The scores of fourth- and 11th-graders stayed flat in Newport News and Hampton, with slight declines and increases in few areas and some averages exactly the same.

Fourth-graders in Newport News remained at the 50th percentile in reading and went from 56th to 57th in math. Eleventh-graders' reading scores in Newport News stayed the same at the 48th percentile and in math remained at the 47th percentile.

York County's fourth-grade scores went up in all categories of the test except for vocabulary and science, which remained the same: vocabulary at the 62nd percentile and science at the 71st. They went from 58th percentile to 63rd percentile in reading, from 62nd to 67th percentile in social studies and from 62nd to 66th percentile in math.

In terms of gender, first-grade boys statewide scored higher than girls on two of the three sections of their test, with girls doing better than boys only on the test's non-verbal section.

Fourth-grade girls did better than boys in the reading, language and math sections, while the boys' scores were higher in social studies and science. Vocabulary scores were even.

In the eighth grade, boys scored higher in vocabulary, social studies and science. Girls' scores were higher in reading, language and mathematics.

Eleventh-grade girls did better in reading and written expression. Boys surpassed girls in science, social studies and mathematics.